Blame the overdose of social networking sites, online reviews and people discussing animatedly on the sadness of the last potter movie. i too am sad that harry potter as it was, will never be seen again. J.K Rowling may be expanding the idea laterally, delving into the past of some principal characters. she has already started
Pottermore. but as a fan of the book, the movie was very very disappointing. because it is hard for me to judge the movie objectively. as with any adaptations from books, David Yates has taken many cinematic liberties. and rightly so. this is about a movie, with a limited number of frames, a budget and time. so it isnt possible to show every angle of a character and every bit of magic. but i felt, in this movie, he has taken one too many liberties which have meant that some characters were not really depicted properly. in fact, i would go on to say that they were butchered.
1. Harry's interaction with Ollivander:
The movie depicts the interaction as almost hostile. harry accuses him of lying. harry is not like that.
the book says that ollivander knows only about wands, as he is a wandmaker. he has no idea about the idea of deathly hallows and harry trusts that he is being honest. harry is a forgiving person, who understands that ollivander had to tell voldemort about the elder wand under immense pain and torture. in fact he takes a liking to the wandmaker.
2. Voldemort's character:
the book depicts voldemort as not only dangerous and ruthless, he is also cunning and calculative. he does not take over the ministry or hogwarts, but installs his followers.
he never leads from the front, does not think twice about letting his best followers to die for him. only when harry (his biggest nemesis) is dead, does he lead his pack of death eaters into hogwarts.
movie: one too many scenes about voldemort with his death eaters stading on top of a mountain, as if he is going to lead them into the hogwarts battle. this is murder of voldy's character as a leader.
book: voldemort
never feels the physical pain when a horcrux is destroyed. he cannot feel pain. he only has anger and fear when he realizes what harry is after. this is an essential element about his character. his soul is so damaged that he cannot feel pain or weakness.
movie: harry says i can feel he is getting weaker !
3. Nagini:
harry never mentions nagini being the 7th horcrux to Neville, who eventually kills it. i guess it could be justified as wasting two more frames in the movie, but then why tell Hermionie and Ron ? the script could have showed harry telling all the three of them together.
the movie shows nagini roaming about freely and voldy fighting-off harry, a true hero-villian (think Matrix or closer home, Main Hoon Na !) style. well, i will get over with the latter one. but nagini roaming freely ? this again depicts voldy's character incorrectly. voldermort did fear for nagini's life once he realizes harry is after the horcruxes. he keeps nagini close to himself and only after he thinks harry is dead does he release nagini from the protective sphere. harry afterall managed to scare voldy.
4. Elder wand:
I thought the story behind elder want is one of the most fascinating sub-plots JKR created. the most powerful wand, so powerful that it chooses it own allegiance. a wand that also brings death and destruction in its wake. the wand is almost like a separate character. and the movie did not do justice to it at all. in fact, in the end, harry just snaps the elder wand into two, as if it were any other wand. if so, then what happens to his own wand ?
the book very beautifully depicts the longing and greed the wand creates. harry repairs his own wand with the elder wand and then returns it to its original place. the elder wand is a magical wand, which cannot be merely snapped into two.
5. various conversations that bring-out characters:
in snape's memories, the bit about petunia writing to dumbledore, to be accepted at hogwarts is never mentioned. it is an important aspect of petunia's dislike towards harry and his dead parents. why did she dislike them so much, but not enough to leave harry to grow-up at an orphanage ? petunia's anger was as much due to the "freak" nature of her sister as well as not being able to have the talent of magic.
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harry never mentions to aberforth that albus dumbledore always regretted his actions during his teenage years. up untill then, aberforth has been a ring-side viewer to the battle. but that conversation might have been a big reason why aberforth too joins actively in the hogwarts battle.
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Kings Cross: this is where harry truly understands dumbledore's actions and his anger goes away. this is also where dumbledore is humble and almost child-like and asks harry for forgiveness for not trusting him enough. this interaction is so important. one of the best part about the characters created by JKR is that the good characters are not all white. they have made their mistakes and have had a grey past, but they have made amends. sadly the movie missed this part completely.
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these are just
some of the differences from the book, differences that are important enough to change the sketch of a certain character or narrative. i am not even going into other numerous mistakes in the movie. i will admit that at the end of the day, the movie was made for a larger audience, and i am being too finicky about the finer details in the book. but then it could be done without making some of these glaring mistakes, which are bound to fall in the eyes of an avid book fan. as i mentioned earlier, there are times when you would want to overlook certain aspects as "director's vision", but at the end of the day, this is a movie made from the book. not inspired by it. there is a difference, a big one at that.
As Kenneth Turan, a film critic with LA Times said about the book fans watching the movies:
We don't turn to these films for thrilling or original cinema, we look for a level of craft, consistency and, most of all, fidelity to the originals -- all of which we get.
Sadly (for me) this movie gives a wide berth to the quote. Sigh.
